Conventionally, in order to mechanize control of tools for machine tools or identification and so on of parts and products at an assembly carriage line in a factory, there is a need for a system for identifying and controlling various kinds of articles such as tools, parts, products and so on. There has been proposed an article identification system, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 1-151832, in which a data carrier having a memory is provided for an article to be identified, necessary information is externally written into the memory of data carrier by data transmission, and the information is read out as required.
In such a data carrier, as shown in FIG. 1, a resonance circuit 201 is connected to a coil for reception, a signal obtained at the resonance circuit is waveform shaped in a waveform shaping circuit 202, data is written into a memory 204 through a memory control portion 203 including a gate array, a CPU and so on, or data is read out based on a command given and is supplied by absorbing the vibration of resonance circuit 201 by a vibration absorbing circuit 205.
However, such a conventional data carrier was so structured that it could have a memory of a relatively large storage capacity. Accordingly, the memory control portion formed of the gate array, the CPU and so on became complicated and a memory having a large storage capacity was used, so that it had a disadvantage that the price thereof could not be reduced. Therefore, disadvantageously, it was not suitable for a case where such a memory of a large storage capacity is not required and a small storage capacity, for example, a storage capacity of a memory of several bits to several tens of bits was large enough.